http://amit.asaravala.com Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:25:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I'm sorry, how much does that say floss costs?  Why doesn't someone just start selling floss at, like, $1.00 -- which is still a huge profit margin for what is essentially some string run through a bit of wax -- and make a killing? http://amit.asaravala.com/its-just-string-people-434 Health Insurance Automobile Insurance Homeowner's Insurance Jewelery Insurance Life Insurance Disability Insurance Professional Liability Insurance Extended Laptop Warranty Automated Backup Service http://amit.asaravala.com/protection-money-431 Is it really 2009?  I almost hadn't noticed.  Not only was the start of the year particularly busy, leaving little time to reflect on 2008 (or to blog about it), it was also, frankly, not the greatest beginning. Some nasty colds afflicted Casa Asaravala, and these were not helped by the ... http://amit.asaravala.com/uh-hey-there-2009-423 Why is it that two of the best songs of 2008 have the worst lyrics? First, there's Human, by The Killers.  It sounds great, but what sort of crap is a chorus that asks, "Are we human? / Or are we dancer?" That's right -- not even "dancers", plural. Just "dancer." The ... http://amit.asaravala.com/the-best-songs-you-cant-sing-out-loud-409 Is it weird that after the boy goes to bed, we look at pictures of him (instead of heading off to bed ourselves)? http://amit.asaravala.com/whats-a-word-like-uxorious-but-in-reference-to-your-child-403 On Tuesday, citizens in Arizona, California, and Florida will vote on controversial proposals that would amend their state constitutions to explicitly ban same-sex marriages. Opponents argue that the amendments are discriminatory and a backward step for civil rights.  Indeed, in California, where same-sex marriage is currently legal, it is a fact ... http://amit.asaravala.com/a-proposal-for-resolving-the-same-sex-marriage-debate-387 She says: "How weird is it that when we want to add new members to our family, we just make them?" http://amit.asaravala.com/very-weird-382 From a travel article about Scotland on sfgate.com today: At 1,300 feet, you can see 365 degrees to all the other islands in the Hebrides. Clearly the editor gave 112% on that article. http://amit.asaravala.com/thats-quite-a-view-380 I just looked out the kitchen window, over the top of my neighbor's house, to see... Angel Island on fire! (Update: Jeff has posted much better photos over on his site.) There's nothing about it on television news at the moment (~9:20pm), nor on sfgate.com or kron4.com.  Yet, several Twitter users are ... http://amit.asaravala.com/angel-island-on-fire-twitter-as-confirmation-367 I've been meaning to post this one for a while: Kiva, an amazing nonprofit that lets anyone loan small amounts of cash to business owners in developing nations, now returns loan repayments to your account as soon as the borrowers make them.  Previously, you had to wait months until the ... http://amit.asaravala.com/kiva-now-returns-microloan-amounts-as-theyre-repaid-so-you-can-keep-lending-360